The Impending Cakewalk in Iran by Mike Whitney
www.dissidentvoice.org
September 27, 2005

“Top-ranking
Americans have told equally top-ranking Indians in recent weeks that the
US has plans to invade Iran before Bush’s term ends. In 2002, a year
before the US invaded Iraq, high-ranking Americans had similarly shared
their definitive vision of a post-Saddam Iraq, making it clear that they
would change the regime in Baghdad.”

-- Calcutta Telegraph, September 25,
2005

The
UN’s nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, officially signed Iran’s death
warrant yesterday. By passing a US-backed resolution that refers Iran’s
nuclear program to the Security Council, the member states have endorsed
America’s genocidal Middle East policy and paved the way for another war.
Even though Tal Afar, Samara and other civilian enclaves are still under a
withering attack from American forces, and even though reports of rampant
prisoner abuse and torture continue to surface around Falluja, and even
though increasing numbers of young Sunni men, who’ve been beaten and shot
in the back of the head, are being fished from the Euphrates River every
day, the sycophantic Euro-allies have thrown their support behind a
resolution that will unavoidably lead to another war. Everyone who signed
on to this treacherous pact is equally culpable of the misery it will
inevitably produce.

Behind the
fraudulent rhetoric and grand gestures for peace, the former colonial
powers, Germany, France and England, have bonded with the Master-state to
plunder and occupy the resource-rich world beyond their borders. They’ll
be knocking the cobwebs off the pith helmets and jodhpurs in jolly England
as they join the campaign to strip another unsuspecting nation of their
natural wealth and subjugate their people.

Old habits die hard.

The balloting on the
IAEA’s resolution was another stunning example of US political fakery.
Normally the agency requires that resolutions be unanimously approved.

Not this time.

The vote for a
resolution typically requires that two-thirds of the members consent. (The
resolution only got 22 of 35 possible votes)

Not this time.

Every part of the
voting was twisted, manipulated and corrupted to meet the needs of the
superpower and its lust for war. Behind every sordid ballot, the coercive
influence of the American Goliath could be felt.

No one wants this
war, but few have the courage to defy their Washington overlords.

The resolution will
never reach the Security Council where it would be immediately struck down
by a veto from Russia or China, but the damage has been done, all the
same. The Bush administration will use the mere suggestion of
“non-compliance” as cover for unleashing the Israeli hellhounds on Iranian
weapons sites; following the strategy that has been in place from the very
onset.

Schroeder, Chirac
and Blair are as guilty of this impending aggression as the perpetrators
in Tel Aviv or Washington.

Iran has no nuclear
weapons, no nuclear weapons program, no plans for acquiring nuclear
weapons, and no territorial ambitions.

They pose no threat
to their neighbors.

Did they help to
push Israel out of Lebanon after a 20-year occupation?

Yes. Was that a
crime?

Tehran is not
involved in the Iraqi resistance, is not supplying military hardware or
bomb-making material to foreign terrorists, does not want another war, and
has no desire to be nuked by Don Rumsfeld. Despite the nonsensical braying
from Time Magazine’s Michael Ware, accusing Iran of all kinds of
nefarious activity in fueling the Iraqi resistance, none of his claims can
be verified. What can be verified, however, are the myriad attempts by the
Pentagon to propagandize and finger-point at other states for the problems
they created for themselves in Iraq.

Sorry, guys, Iraq is
your baby. Now, fix it.

As for Michael Ware,
the Pentagon has a whole stable full of enlightened scribes ready to
manufacture whatever fiction is required for the next war. Ware is no
exception. He’s just doing his job.

So far, Iran’s
nuclear program has operated entirely within the confines of the NPT
(Non-proliferation Treaty) The IAEA’s chief Mohammed ElBaradei has stated
repeatedly that there is no evidence whatsoever that Iran is building
nuclear weapons.

None!

But, let’s not
ignore the real meaning of the NPT. The Non-proliferation Treaty is
nothing more than a legal framework that institutionalizes the double
standards and hypocrisy of the more powerful states. Why should Iran
grovel for nuclear fuel for its power plants, while the USA is developing
new bunker-busting nukes, space warfare weaponry, and upgrading its 10,000
nuclear missile stockpile?

What we really need
is an IAEA inspection team to ferret through the US arsenal. Then the
world could really make some headway on proliferation issues.

Why should Iran be
threatened and humiliated in front of the world body when Israel, India
and Pakistan stole nuclear technology and developed bombs for themselves?

The NPT is a
degrading apartheid-system that maintains the status quo and keeps
America’s boot firmly placed on the neck of the developing world. It
should be replaced with a scheme that puts justice and evenhandedness
above the self-serving bigotries of the superpower and its cohorts.

But, why are we
kidding ourselves anyway? The current farce at the UN has nothing to do
with Iran’s imaginary nuclear weapons-program. The whole affair is just a
shabby rerun of the lead up to “Shock and Awe.”

Where’s the hidden
stash of Iraqi WMD we were promised by Bush, Cheney and Powell?
Apparently, they were secretly spirited away to Tehran where they could
create the pretext for another war.

Iran’s real crime is
that it sits on an ocean of oil, the driving force behind all
administration policies. It is in “non-compliance” with the Bush
directive that puts every drop of world petroleum in the hands of the
Washington cabal.

The EU’s
participation in this charade tells us that the global oil shortfall is
even more severe than most people imagine. In just five years, all of the
existing reserves of world oil will begin trending downward, falling well
short of growing demand. Much of the current research indicates that Saudi
Arabia is drying up as well, leaving Western economies at the mercy of
Teheran, Baghdad and Caracas. Despite the phony bluster about “free
trade,” Bush and Co. have no intention of sacrificing American supremacy
to something as fickle as the market. Nor do they plan to allow the global
economic system to slip into foreign control by entrusting the world’s
most valuable resource to the dubious rulers in Iraq and Iran -- not while
they have an endless supply of laser-guided missiles and bunker-busting
munitions.

The handwriting is
on the wall. It’s just a matter of whether Iran “will go peacefully into
that good night” or not. The ground has already been cleared for another
larcenous crusade, another monstrous, unprovoked aggression against a
peaceful nation. The red herring of “non-compliance” will be brandished to
the world while Washington gears up for its next bloody campaign. The plan
to reshape the Middle East is moving forward at breakneck speed and
unsuspecting Iran just entered the imperial crosshairs.